Nearly 3 years after Ike, residents finally get homes replaced

Moving day — at lastBaytown family among first to get storm-damaged house replaced

MIKE MORRIS, HOUSTON CHRONICLE |
August 18, 2011

Barbara Bunn was way past ready this week to empty the storage container that had held her belongings since Ike struck in 2008.

Photo By Thomas B. Shea/Chronicle

Bunn and her granddaughter, Heather Knight, also are trying to resurrect the front yard of Bunn's new house in the 200 block of East Fayle in Baytown.

Photo By Thomas B. Shea/Chronicle

Brittney Bunn helps her aunt move into the new two-bedroom, one-bath home in Baytown that they'll share with Barbara Bunn's husband, granddaughter and great-grandson.

When Hurricane Ike ripped the roof off Barbara Bunn's home in Baytown, the 65-year-old was not surprised. She had lost roofs on two other homes to Gulf hurricanes over the years.

This time was different, though. Federal workers gave Bunn a blue tarp roof days after the Sept. 13, 2008, storm — but for 2½ years, that was the only substantial repair her home received.

In recent weeks, Bunn became one of the first locals to see their severely Ike-damaged homes replaced with new houses.

Bunn filed an application with Harris County in October 2009, as soon as the county was cleared to accept it, and spent more than a year gathering paperwork and signing documents.

"The house was pretty much wasted, but we really didn't have anywhere else we could go," Bunn said. "There's been a real load lifted. I'd been praying and praying that something would happen for us."

Bunn's gratitude outweighs her frustration at the delay, but hundreds of other homeowners in the region still have the telltale blue tarps on their roofs.

Local officials blame the lag on the state.

New mandates from Austin rolled down almost monthly, city and county officials said. Those changes, which continued as late as August 2010, forced local staff repeatedly to request new information from each applicant - thousands of them, at that point.

Three pages turn to 13

Initially, the city asked applicants to fill out a three-page form it uses to distribute the type of federal housing funds being used for Ike recovery. When the state issued its first rules weeks later - after hundreds already had applied - the form was 13 pages, Eichenbaum said.

Daphne Lemelle, the director of Housing & Community Development for Harris County, said the state has a right to be more restrictive than basic federal guidelines, but not at the expense of residents.

"They got contracts out, trying to show progress and movement on the program, but they weren't ready," Lemelle said. "They did not set aside the time and effort to write the rules before they sent contracts out."

Gary Hagood, deputy commissioner of the General Land Office, said he has no interest in past troubles, and his agency is looking forward.

"We move at incredible speed, we try to eliminate bureaucracy, and we try to get the job done," Hagood said. He added that he will introduce firm deadlines that were absent from earlier contracts with local governments, and will reallocate their funds if the deadlines are not met.

Henneberger said local governments - particularly the Houston's - share blame for delays with the state.

"It is true that the state was slow to stand the programs up … but Houston was and remains an outlier," he said. "They've got the program just barely going."

Slow going

Houston has repaired or is repairing just eight homes so far, according to Eichenbaum, though 36 homes will begin construction soon and another 23 are under construction using local rather than federal funds. The city plans to fix a total of 242 Ike-damaged homes.

Eichenbaum said there was, essentially, no single-family housing program in place when Mayor Annise Parker took office in January 2010.

Houston got $87.2 million for disaster relief, $60 million of which is going to fix apartment buildings. About $9.4 million will go to repair single-family homes.

Harris County received $56.3 million, nearly 80 percent of which will go toward single-family homes. To date, the county has repaired or is repairing 177 homes of its goal of 500.

Galveston County, which received $99.5 million in Ike funds, has finished or now is repairing 351homes.

The city of Galveston received $160.4 million and has fixed or is fixing 216 homes on its list of 1,033. The city in January considered firing its housing repair contractor for moving too slowly and has appointed a monitor, to be paid from the firm's fee.